r/technology • u/DontFearTheCreaper • 20h ago

Social Media Tech CEOs who grinned behind Trump at inauguration lose billions in wake of tariffs

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariff-bezos-musk-zuckerberg-b2727147.html
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u/Little_candy_cream 20h ago

Maybe they should have thought twice about aligning with him

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u/javoss88 19h ago

I still don’t understand how these “move fast and break stuff” supposed “innovators” all lined up for him. They’re already richer than rich, what’s to gain?

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u/Jester2k5 19h ago

More money. It’s never enough for them

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u/kerouac666 17h ago

I'm an alcoholic in recovery and I keep explaining to people that these people are literally addicted to money. In the same way that a crack head will do anything for more crack even if they already had a pile of crack, they will do anything for more money.

And in that same way, they will never stop, especially as addiction to money is a socially encouraged, self-reinforcing addiction. No one says a crack head is a genius who people should trust because they're an addict, but they do say that about CEOs.

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u/yawrrpdrk 8h ago

Not disagreeing but these people live in a different reality than everyone else. I’m not sure they care about money as much as they crave the power that level of wealth affords them. They want the attention, the control, and ultimately some kind of legacy so even when they are dead they are remembered.

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u/MeoowDude 3h ago

Money is their power. I’ve heard the comparison to other types of addictions before. They sure as hell don’t care about their legacy as the majority of billionaires are vile people. You have to be vile to a substantial degree to even become a billionaire.

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u/AbraxosLovesFlowers 8h ago

Yep. It’s an addiction, but for some reason it’s been deemed a socially acceptable one.

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u/old_mayo 7h ago

for some reason it’s been deemed a socially acceptable one

The reason is because rich assholes have been using their money and power for decades/centuries to convince people that being rich is Good, Actually through bullshit like "trickle-down economics"

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u/ABHOR_pod 7h ago

I worked with a guy who wasn't a literal crackhead, but definitely had crack head behavior. Betray his own brother over some petty shit and sell his stolen PS4 to buy booze type shit.

I got along great with him. He was my closest work friend for a while.

Never invited him over to hang out because I didn't want him knowing I had a PS4 and a big screen TV and a gaming PC.

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u/Teledildonic 19h ago

Line must go up, reality be damned.

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u/the_Dorkness 9h ago

It’s not money to them anymore when they’re at that level. It’s a leaderboard.

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u/bobartig 19h ago

Mature tech CEOs are not 'move fast and break things' leaders anymore. Facebook owns the store. They aren't running around breaking things at this point because it only costs them money. Same with the rest of the Magnificent 7.

The Doge Douches were willing to break things because they don't care about the outcome. They don't think they "own" the federal gov't or the outcome, and the faster it gets destroyed, the sooner they can replace it with something else. So they're not even "moving fast and breaking things," they're "break things and then eventually make another thing instead."

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u/javoss88 18h ago

This rings true

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u/rbrphag 19h ago

You have it backwards. They didn’t line up with him. He lined up with them.

And being richest rather than richer is what is in it for them.

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u/javoss88 18h ago

Incredibly petty

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u/i_love_rosin 16h ago

Check out the book from a facebook whistleblower titled "Careless People". You can see how rotten these tech ceo's are, how corrupt they have become over the last decade. Did you know facebook had a team embedded with the trump campaign in 2016?

It's always been about money, power and ACCESS

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u/javoss88 15h ago

I didn’t know that. I do remember fb doing a “social engineering experiment” a few years back to test whether their algo could make people depressed. Evil fux

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u/i_love_rosin 15h ago

It's so much worse than you know. In 2016, they structured their ads so that they were much cheaper if they got more engagement. While also not having any sort of fact checking. So more inflammatory ads not only got way more engagement, but also cost substantially less to run. This is why russia was so effective on facebook.

They also gave the campaign all the tools to do the most extensive micro-targeting ads in history. They were able to send ads/fake content to users which would hidden from other people.

And then there's how they explicitly helped the Myanmar junta commit their genocide. And how they funnel "wrong think" abuses to the chinese governement. They gave china so much power that china is allowed to take down content that was posted in other countries, and they allow china to look at dissident's private messages and such. There's so much more too.

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u/javoss88 15h ago

Yaysus fuck. Didn’t know that either. Thanks

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u/Mysterious-Job-469 19h ago

Control and power.

Rich people rape children at a WAAAAAAAY higher ratio than ANY OTHER DEMOGRAPHIC BY MULTITUDES. They want the ability to do it in public while the people responsible for enforcing the law against them are screaming "WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT?! WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT WHEN I DON'T?!?!?!?" at the middle and working class.

It's a very slight adjustment from the current status quo.

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u/Litarider 19h ago edited 16h ago

In case you haven’t noticed since the inauguration, Trump found someone to move fast and break stuff. Breaking stuff is the entire point of this administration. Break social security and the old people will work for whatever you give them. Break our poorly funded, skeletal social safety net and workers have to work for whatever crumbs you hand them. When you’re wealthy like they are, there’s always more wealth to be gained.

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u/javoss88 18h ago

Gah I hate this and you’re right

E: but at what point can they not just fuck off and relax on their mountains of gold and not try to actively fuck up everyone else’s lives

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u/Litarider 16h ago

I keep envisioning Scrooge McDuck on his piles of gold.

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u/GeneralKeycapperone 9h ago

These people are driven entirely by the acquisition of wealth - nothing else matters, so once some mega rich got into bed with Trump, they could not stomach the prospect of missing out in relative terms.

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u/WhatIsInnuendo 19h ago

I think what OP is trying to say is that they will benefit from this.
Due to the drop in stock valuation, people who bought shares will desperately sell their shares to recoup their losses. The companies can buy back those shares at a very cheap price gaining more control of their company and later when the value of the stock goes back up, offer to them them again to the public.
So what looks like a loss today will actually be billions in profit in the future.
By taking the market, it's the public shareholders that are suffering and the people who align with him will profit from it

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u/Top_Hair_8984 6h ago

🍊 loves chaos just for this reason. He says it out loud. Chaos brings opportunity for the rich to increase their wealth cheaply. .

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u/SlowbeardiusOfBeard 18h ago

This only works if the value goes back up. A lot of tech companies rely on advertising for their worth. If the economy is fucked for a significant period of time, all that advertising loot will dry up as people can't afford to spend. This would make their value drop even further. Meta have been trying to pivot to other things for a while, but they aren't offering much new that people want.

A recession could potentially wipe them out, as they stagnate further and become vulnerable to losing their major advantage as being the default social media platform. Being first to the table is a massive thing for competitors to overcome.

I really don't think many of the tech bros with the exception of Peter Thiel expected or wanted any of this.

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u/WhatIsInnuendo 18h ago

I wish it were the case but these companies are too big to fail at this point.

I don't know or care about Meta but Amazon, Apple, Google are all not in precarious situations at all and will continue to grow